Most of my weeks, if I don’t have anything to do, or have a job, the days go flying by.
This week, however, crawled by and there were plenty of things to do, and then it came to a screeching halt right in the middle of it.
I won’t go into detail of why we went on a road trip Wednesday, but my parents and I wanted to visit an old friend. My parents live about thirty miles from me, and our friend is an additional fifty miles.
Getting to my parents wasn’t a problem. It rarely is (except when there are major traffic issues around downtown Los Angeles, but I’ve learned to deal with them and how to drive around them).
I picked them up and grabbed a quick lunch from one of our favorite family run restaurants before heading out.
Then we drove on down to our destination, only getting lost briefly because I had put in the wrong address in the GPS, which added fifteen minutes to the trip.
Once our visit was done, we headed back up, with plans on what we were going to do for dinner.
Then we hit the traffic, only miles from my parent’s home, and it slowed to a crawl.
Eventually we were down to about three exits and we would be home, and then the car dashboard lit up like a Christmas Tree. The Battery Light came on, and then the Oil Light came on, and then the steering wheel began to shake crazily.
I had to carefully move to the side of the freeway with my emergency blinkers on. I shut everything down and start back up again, move a few feet and have to start all over again several times. After which not only were then did the Battery and Oil lights come on, so did the Engine light.
Even with the emergency lights on people were honking at me to get out of their way. I was terrified that we’d get hit and my elderly parents would be injured.
Thank God, and I really mean that. When we finally reached the off ramp the engine ran fine again, but there was no way I was going to drive it more than a block at this point. I just needed a safe place to park. Luckily there was a small shop that had a good parking lot and I was able to safely get into a spot.
We then spent two hours sitting in the parking lot waiting for a tow truck to show up.
The tow is a story in itself, because there were two drivers. One was new and was training, and my car was the class room.
My sister had to come pick up us and take us home and the tow followed a few minutes later.
I ended up spending the night with my parents, and then in the morning called another tow to take the car down to the dealership for repairs. (This dealer ship is where I bought the car. Actually, I’ve bought all the cars I’ve owned so far from this dealer. I’ll write about them someday.)
I was dreading the cost of all this. I really can’t afford anything like this right now. As you know I need to find a job, so paying for car repairs isn’t going to happen.
After I leave the car off, I walk back to the restaurant I mentioned earlier, for breakfast. Then I spent an hour or so walking about the neighborhood, and I get a phone call from the dealership with the news of what’s bad with the car.
The problem apparently is a fuel Injector Pressure Sensor. That sounded like it was going to be expected.
It was going to take to the next day in order to make the repairs and so I rented a car so I could drive home and back.
Turned out that since it was related to the fuel, it falls under the Emissions Warranty and so there was no charge for the repairs. Not for the parts or the labor.
Praise God for that. We had been figuring out ways to pay for it all, but it was taken care of on its own.
In the end all that I had to pay for was the rental car. A nice car, but I didn’t like it and certainly wouldn’t buy one in the future.
On Friday I am able to bring my own car home with no problems, and no financial stress. Praise God.
In the meantime, my employment agency has submitted me for three different jobs this week, so that’s a positive way to end the week.
All has been good, and I pray that next week will be just as good.